While working on Microsoft's Encarta, Evershed and O'Malley
got a taste of entertainment creation and began focusing their talents
toward that objective. Their break came in 1993 when an order for
the game Critical Path came from publisher Media Vision.
Proving a financial and critical success, Mondo followed it up with
a second CD-Rom adventure entitled The Daedalus Encounter.
For the next few years, O'Malley recalls, "We continued to
work on the art and the aesthetic of games until all of a sudden,
there was the Internet...it starts formulating and we decided that
was the business we wanted to be in." Their inaugural short-form
animated project was for Macromedia's then titled "shockrave"
site. Called Tech Sergeant, it featured an irascible character
who responded to viewers' on-line software questions in an unconventional
and irreverent comedic fashion, proving the creative fore-runner
of the studio's individualistic style now flooding the Web under
the banner "Mondo Mini Shows."

And Then There Was The NetSecuring initial capital in early 1999, Mondo began in earnest
on series development and pilot production while at the same time
building the infrastructure of their syndication organization. "The
first show concept was The God and Devil Show," Evershed
recounts. "We were looking for ideas that would rise above
the noise level of the Web. We liked the show concept because it
parodied celebrities and it provided a great platform for some goofy
satire. It was a show that would not get picked up for TV but we
instinctively felt that it would appeal to today's Web audience."
Instincts clearly won out as this weekly series is now garnering
extremely positive reviews running exclusively on Warner Bros. entertaindom.com.

The other two Net shows unveiled in Mondo's inceptive wave -- Like,
News and Thugs on Film -- are also distinctively topical
in story content and strong in personality, giving these leading
series a legitimate air of immediacy by chronicling in `toons life
around us. Last September, Netscape was the first to enter into
a one year non-exclusive distribution deal for these two shows,
airing them on its entertainment section www.netcenter.com. Following
soon after, Macromedia's www.shockwave.com partnered with Mondo
for these same weekly Web series, leveraging their entertainment
draw for the launch of its "Toon-A-Vision" zone. In the
ensuing six months, Mondo's unique on-line syndication model has
been in full swing, evidenced by the plethora of additional partnerships
they now have in line.

Christened the "Mondo Network," Evershed describes their
distribution concept as "a hybrid between a TV syndicator like
King World and United Media (a comics syndicator). Like King World,
in that we're pre-selling advertising on our shows before partnering
with our affiliates...and like United Media in that we're distributing
very character-driven entertainment with lots of ancillary and merchandising
potential." In addition, their production process has roots
in traditional media models. Evershed likens the operation to producing
"a weekly television show. Monday is spent brainstorming with
the entire writing team. Wednesdays, we table read with the voice
talent, and Thursdays the writers submit final polished script.
VO session, animation and post is performed in the second week."
Right now, almost 100% of the work takes place at their facilities
in San Francisco. And with an array of powerful new shows soon to
go into production, Mondo is looking to expand its in-house crew
of writers, directors and animators. At the same time, they are
available to outside animation independents interested in pitching
original concepts for co-production or syndicator-type partnerships
who have their own capabilities of episodic production in a place
elsewhere.